First look – BBC Three’s Clique

Clique is a brand new six-part BBC Three drama which sees best friends and university new girls Holly and Georgia drawn into an elite clique of alpha girls led by lecturer Jude McDermid.

Jude’s brand of feminism is alluring, just like the circle of bright students she surrounds herself with. Georgia’s effortless entry into the clique leaves Holly out in the cold.

But Holly’s jealousy soon escalates to panic as Georgia begins acting erratically. Alarmed by this transformation in her best friend, Holly is compelled to follow her into Jude’s closely guarded circle.

What she discovers is a seductive world of lavish parties, populated by Edinburgh’s highest-powered business men and women. But it’s a world underpinned by sordid compromise, and as Holly exposes its deeply corrupt core, the danger mounts from all angles, for her and Georgia. Can Holly reclaim her soulmate? And at what cost to herself?

Synnove Karlsen will make her TV debut as Holly alongside The Fall’s Aisling Franciosi as Georgia, while Sherlock’s Louise Brealey will star as Jude McDermid with Emun Eliot (Prometheus; Game of Thrones; Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Filth) as her brother, Alistair McDermid.

Image: BBC/Balloon/Mark Main

Rachel Hurd-Wood (Peter Pan; Tomorrow, When the War Began; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), Sophia Brown, Ella Rae-Smith and Emma Appleton play the ‘clique’, and will be joined by Mark Strepan (New Blood), Sorcha Groundsell (Iona), Peter Bankole (The Physician), Chris Fulton (One of Us) and Harris Dickinson (The Medium, Home)

Written by Jess Brittain with Kirstie Swain and Milly Thomas, Clique is descrivbed as “a seductive, intense drama about friendship tested to extremes”.

Brittain said: “Clique is about the different ways ambition plays out in young women at university. It’s a heightened version of a certain type of uni experience, pulled from my time at uni, then ramped up a few notches into a psychological thriller.

“Clique goes to some pretty dark places. But returns, always, to the key female friendships of our central characters”.

BBC Studios Executive Producer, Christopher Aird added: “Clique is drama for a new generation of viewers starring a new generation of brilliant young actors. Jess Brittain has created truly authentic characters and propelled them into a seductive and by turns shocking story”.